Lawyers must have authority to act

http://bit.ly/dhsQK8

The Baryluk/Townley-Smith case involves a client who says her lawyer went on a "frolic of her own" and started frivolous law suits without instruction. This part of the case is not all that complicated. Lawyers act as agents for their clients and ought not and must not do anything the client does not authorise.

The more difficult point raised is whether regulators ought to have acted earlier in dealing with the seemingly bizarre claims asserted on behalf of Ms. Baryluk (And factually the claims do seem delusional -- they assert a vast criminal conspiracy among judges and others front by Warner Bros).

While on the surface such intervention would have been sensible, in fact closing down unusual legal claims early is inappropriate.

Many claims widely accepted today (viz wrongful convictions, sexual abuse, native land claims, product liability claims) were initially considered extreme long shots.

To say regulators should look into claims that are unlikely to succeed would chill proper legal development. Here there were genuine grounds to review the lawyer's actions -- but not because of the claims asserted but because of ungovernable and contemptuous misconduct.